Holy crepe. I really believe the cost of healthcare is a moral issue. It is flat-out wrong how much things like like-saving surgeries (and even just regular well-person care!) cost.

Westley's prenatal care and birth cost us $900 out of pocket. My insurance paid for everything except the home birth itself and the in-home aftercare. Basically, they didn't pay for any care that took place outside the clinic.

This time around, our insurance is different. Midwifery care outside of a hospital is not covered at all, so we're paying for everything out of pocket. The total cost will be just over $2,000; I think it's $2,450 for everything, including the home birth, and we get a discount if we're paid in full before 37 weeks. I would happily pay twice as much for the midwifery care we receive! My midwives are truly some of my favorite people.

So not exactly a hospital bill...but I wanted to gripe somewhere and this is the closest thing. I had a pap smear in November 2010. In November 2011 I got a statement from my insurance company (that I am no longer with) saying they wouldn't pay for the pathology for the pap smear because 5 days prior to my Dr. office sending the path report to TX they instituted a rule that they would only pay for in-state labs. Since this was clearly not my fault I called the insurance company and they said if I filled out a billion and half LONG forms they would "review" the case. I decided to just pay the $85 bill...problem is the lab never sent me a the bill. I was waiting these last two months for it when guess what I got today. A bill from a collection agency!!!! I am just so mad and not sure exactly what to do. I checked my credit report and they haven't put anything on there as of yet, but I am afraid if I pay the collection agency that they WILL put it on there. I found a # for the lab that never billed me that I can call tomorrow...I am just annoyed and will be quite upset if this goes on my credit report.

Wow. We have yet to get the bill for our hospital stay, but I just got the Explanation of Benefits from my insurance company regarding it. It looks like the pre-insurance cost of our entire 2 day stay in the hospital was a hair over $12,000.

My hospital bills were $24k from the hospital, + $8000 for the anesthesiologist (seriously???) + $650 for the neonatologist being at the birth plus the baby hearing test (thankfully no NICU time). The whole thing wound up costing us $1000 out of pocket with minimal arguing - the anesthesiologist tried to charge us because he was out of network, but the insurance agreed that it wasn't like we had a choice and they paid up. I had a vaginal birth, but it wasn't that normal. My water broke and I didn't go into labor so I wound up spending three days in L&D getting antibiotics and eventually being induced. I don't know how much that shot the cost up.

ahhhh sorry this is off-topic but Butternut I'm so bummed that your bad experience was at Mt. Sinai, I was looking at it as an alternative to the place I had my bad experience (Maimonides.) Ugh I think the bottom line is hospitals suck.

Not sure-- the EoB just listed Wren as the patient and I haven't seen one yet for me.

It is WAY more than we were billed for Grey (think his portion last time was a relstively small part of our total cost, maybe 2k?) but Wren had a trip to the mini-NICU, about a thousand blood draws, IV fluids, and antibiotics. So I guess that's the difference.

ahhhh sorry this is off-topic but Butternut I'm so bummed that your bad experience was at Mt. Sinai, I was looking at it as an alternative to the place I had my bad experience (Maimonides.) Ugh I think the bottom line is hospitals suck.

I wish I could say differently, but I hated it. Cannot recommend it. I'm sure it would be better with your doula and midwife. Although, I really was annoyed with many of the nurses and the pediatric care we received there.

If I have another one, I'm going somewhere else. I wonder if NYU is better since it is a breastfeeding friendly hospital (only 19 in the USA)? I have heard Roosevelt is the most natural birth friendly.

ahhhh sorry this is off-topic but Butternut I'm so bummed that your bad experience was at Mt. Sinai, I was looking at it as an alternative to the place I had my bad experience (Maimonides.) Ugh I think the bottom line is hospitals suck.

Yes, definitely ask your doula which NY hospital to use. Mine is in NJ, but if you'd like I can ask her for recommendations.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

So not exactly a hospital bill...but I wanted to gripe somewhere and this is the closest thing. I had a pap smear in November 2010. In November 2011 I got a statement from my insurance company (that I am no longer with) saying they wouldn't pay for the pathology for the pap smear because 5 days prior to my Dr. office sending the path report to TX they instituted a rule that they would only pay for in-state labs. Since this was clearly not my fault I called the insurance company and they said if I filled out a billion and half LONG forms they would "review" the case. I decided to just pay the $85 bill...problem is the lab never sent me a the bill. I was waiting these last two months for it when guess what I got today. A bill from a collection agency!!!! I am just so mad and not sure exactly what to do. I checked my credit report and they haven't put anything on there as of yet, but I am afraid if I pay the collection agency that they WILL put it on there. I found a # for the lab that never billed me that I can call tomorrow...I am just annoyed and will be quite upset if this goes on my credit report.

I had a similar issue where my doctor's office used the wrong billing code on my pap smear, so my insurance refused to pay. Instead of resubmitting the bill with the correct code, my doctor's office sent it to collections. I got the doctor to fix it by making a written complaint to the doctor's office. Not sure if you will have the same luck, but I was assured that the "collections" agency was actually internal to the medical group and would not result in an adverse credit report. In my experience, talking to the original creditor seems to be the way to go for any kind of billing dispute -- collection companies always seem to assume that the creditor cannot be wrong, so the person who "owes" the money must be be a lying deadbeat.

Well the lab let me pay the bill and said they would "e-mail" the collections agency. I wrote the agency and told them the bill was paid, but I am still waiting for the invoice from the lab that I can copy and send to the collections...what a pain.

Oh yeah, okay, I got the EoB for me today... so our insurance was billed 7k for me, 12k for the Magician. 19k total. I believe we will end up paying 10% of that though we'll see when the bill actually shows up.

Last time around it was 6k for me and something fairly small for the Emperor (2k?) but again, I think that's down to differences in their treatment.

I gave birth at Roosevelt. They do have the birthing center but I was too far past my due date to use it. There is a whole list of other things that can get you risked out of using it as well. I still had a very good experience on the regular labor and delivery floor. The one thing I didn't like was that there wasn't a lactation consultant on staff. I had one nurse that was basically saying I was starving Ada because I couldn't get her to latch and kept insisting I put a drop of formula on my nipple (which i kept refusing). However, I do know someone who said the nursing staff was super helpful with helping her breastfeed.

ahhhh sorry this is off-topic but Butternut I'm so bummed that your bad experience was at Mt. Sinai, I was looking at it as an alternative to the place I had my bad experience (Maimonides.) Ugh I think the bottom line is hospitals suck.

Yes, definitely ask your doula which NY hospital to use. Mine is in NJ, but if you'd like I can ask her for recommendations.

My doula recommended Mt. Sinai and NYU and I can't find a dr or midwife that takes my insurance that delivers there. FRUSTRATING. So, so many midwife practices just say "sorry, we don't do VBACs" aaaaaaah. I know that no matter where I go, it's possible that I'll have a bad experience, or a nasty nurse that day, or that virtually anything can happen though.

Audrey, I try not to wear my homebirthing sandwich board too loudly because I know not everyone is down with that or is able, but are you open at all to the idea of VBACing at home?

I have a friend who lives in NY who went through the exact same thing you are (none of the "good" OBs/midwives took her insurance, and the ones that did refused to VBAC). She's planning to have a homebirth next month and has really come to peace with this decision, and is even happier with this choice than she was at the beginning when she was planning a hospital birth. I know that home birth is not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd be happy to pass on any of her info if it would help you at all!

flavabean, I would love to do a HBAC. It's just not in the cards for me because my insurance will not reimburse ANY out-of-network claims and I can't afford to pay 8-10k out of pocket. I even looked into changing insurance but I can't be too choosy because my boss pays for it 100% and I'm the only employee. At this point I'm happy with my actual midwives, just not with the hospital they work at. This may sound terrible, but my doula and I were joking about "accidentally going into labor" in the vicinity of a hospital I've heard good things about, either in Manhattan or in NJ. But I doubt I will have the balls to go through with that.eh sorry this has turned into such a hijack. I feel fortunate to have healthcare at all and I'm terribly angry that so many of you are facing ridiculous bills even WITH insurance.

This may sound terrible, but my doula and I were joking about "accidentally going into labor" in the vicinity of a hospital I've heard good things about, either in Manhattan or in NJ. But I doubt I will have the balls to go through with that.

Believe me, I hear you. I've thought about that myself. But the two local hospitals here are so anti-VBAC to the point of ridiculousness. When I called one to see what my options there were and asked what would happen if I showed up in active labor and pushing, and the woman who answered the phone said dryly, "We would be cutting you open as we pushed you down the hall to the OR." Lovely.

The closest hospital that even offers TOLAC is 2 hours away (it was the hospital we ended up in after surgery for Ezra's NICU time, and it's a great facility, but since my first labor was only 4 hours long, I really don't want to risk it. I'd be having a car baby in my pants.) Their regulations are all but forcing me to HBAC.

I'm so glad you have a doula. That will definitely help you have a more positive birth experience no matter where you end up. VBAC is such a horrible fight to have to go through. I really hope you find the right answer!